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LemmaStatement: AI-adaptedProof: AI-adaptedPipeline-generatedjudge pass (gpt-5.6-terra)audited 2026-09-22
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The first chip identifies the source of the statement or construction; the second identifies the source of its local proof or verification.

  • Literature-sourced: the exact statement appears in a cited source; only wording and notation differ.
  • AI-adapted: a semantically identical restatement of literature-sourced material, modulo indexing, notation, and boundary cases adopted by the library.
  • AI-generated: a genuinely novel statement formulated by AI, with no source for the claim itself.

These labels describe origin, not correctness: citations and verification chips remain separate evidence.

Boolean ultrafilter extension

Statement

Assume the Axiom of Choice (The Axiom of Choice). Let B be a Boolean algebra (Boolean algebra and Boolean ultrafilter). Then:

  1. every proper filter FB is contained in a Boolean ultrafilter;
  2. ultrafilters separate elements: if ab in B, there is an ultrafilter containing exactly one of a and b.

The proof deliberately records the repository's AC/Zorn implementation; it does not claim that the ultrafilter lemma for Boolean algebras is weaker than AC, and no such claim is used anywhere below.

Facts & Assumptions

Given: An assumed Axiom of Choice, a Boolean algebra B, and a proper filter FB.

[L1]

Boolean algebras, proper filters and ultrafilters are as defined in Boolean algebra and Boolean ultrafilter: a proper filter contains 1, omits 0, is closed under and upward closed; an ultrafilter is a maximal proper filter.

[L2]

Under the Axiom of Choice, a nonempty poset in which every chain has an upper bound has a maximal element (Zorn's lemma, The Axiom of Choice).

[L3]

In a Boolean algebra the symmetric difference ab:=(a¬b)(b¬a) satisfies ab0 for ab, and cab=0 for c:=ab; both are consequences of the complement and distributive laws. [algebra]

Proof

technique · direct
1.1

The poset P of proper filters of B containing F, ordered by inclusion, is nonempty because FP. Every nonempty chain {Fi} in P has an upper bound: the union G:=iFi is a filter (it contains 1; it omits 0 since 0 in the union would put 0 in some Fi; it is closed under because two elements lie in a common Fi by directedness of a chain, and it is upward closed because each Fi is), and G contains F.

L1algebra
1.2

By [L2], applied under the standing Axiom of Choice, P has a maximal element U, a proper filter containing F that is maximal among proper filters, hence an ultrafilter by [L1]; this proves claim 1.

1.1L1L2
1.3

If U is an ultrafilter and aU, the filter generated by U{a} cannot be proper, by maximality in [L1]. Hence some uU satisfies ua=0: otherwise the family of elements above some ua would be a proper filter strictly containing U. Thus u¬a, so ¬aU by upward closure. Conversely a and ¬a cannot both lie in a proper filter because their meet is 0. Therefore exactly one of aU, ¬aU holds.

L1algebra
2.1

For ab the symmetric difference c:=ab has c0 by [L3], so the principal filter Fc:={d:dc} is proper (0≱c); by [step 1.2] it is contained in an ultrafilter U, which therefore contains c.

step 1.2L1L3
3.1

If aU then ca=a¬bU, while bU, since bU would give abU and then 0=cabU; symmetrically, if aU then by [step 1.3] ¬aU and the same computation with the roles exchanged gives bU. Hence U contains exactly one of a,b, proving claim 2.

step 1.3step 2.1L3algebra

Remarks

  • Zorn is applied to filters, not to chains in the algebra. The upper bound of a chain is its union, and properness of the union is exactly the point where the filter axioms are used.
  • Separation is what makes b[b] injective in the representation theorem Stone representation for Boolean algebras.

Depends on

Used by

Dependency tree · two levels

10 results within two dependency steps of this one, each drawn at its shortest distance from it. An arrow runs from a result to what uses it, so the chart reads left to right and ends at this result, which carries a heavier outline. Every node is a link to that result. Click elsewhere on the chart to enlarge it.

Sources